A Mummer's Wife

by George Moore

These days were the best of her life. She felt more at peace with the world, she placed more confidence in her husband than she had ever done before; and when he came in of an afternoon and sat by her side and talked of herself and of their little baby, softened in all the intimate fibres of her sex, she laid her hand in his, and sighed for sheer joy. The purpose of her life seemed now to show a definite sign of accomplishment.

The only drawback to their happiness was their poverty. The fifteen pounds of borrowed money had gone through their hands like water, and God knows what would have become of them if Dick had not been fortunate to make another tenner by looking after a piece given at a morning performance. What with the doctor's bills, the nurse's wages, the baby's clothes, they were for ever breaking into their last sovereign. Dick spoke of their difficulties with reluctance, not wishing to distress her, but he felt he must rouse her out of the apathy into which she had fallen, and he begged of her to take the next engagement he could find for her. It seemed to him that she was now quite well, but when he pressed for a promise the first time she answered: 'Yes, Dick, I should like to get to work again,' but when he came to her with a proposal of work, she was quick to find excuses. The baby was foremost among them; she did not like to put the child out to nurse. 'If the child were to die, I should never forgive myself,' she would say. 'Don't ask me, Dick, don't ask me.'

'But, Kate, we cannot go on living here on nothing. We owe the landlady for three weeks.'

At these words Kate would burst into tears, and when he succeeded in consoling her she would remind him that if she went back to work before she was quite well she might be laid up for a long time, which would be much worse than the loss of a miserable three or four pounds a week. To convince Dick completely she would remind him that as she had been playing leading parts it would not be wise to accept the first thing she could get. 'If one lets oneself down, Dick, in the profession, it's difficult to get up again.'

'Well, dear,' Dick would answer, 'I must try and find something to do myself. You shall not be asked again to go back to work until you feel like it. When you come to tell me that you're tired of staying at home.

'Don't speak like that, Dick, for it seems as if you were laying blame upon me, and I'm not to blame. You will be able to judge for yourself when I'm fit to go back to work, and one of these days you will come with the news of a leading part.'

Accompanying him to the door she said she would like to return to the stage in a leading part, but not in any of the parts she had already played in, but in something new. These objections and excuses brought a cloud into Dick's face which she did not notice, but when he had gone she would begin to think of his kindness towards her and of what she could do to reward him. His shirts wanted mending, and as soon as they were mended she made hoods and shoes for the baby.

In many little ways the old life that she thought she had left behind in Hanley began to reappear, and when Dick came into the room and found her reading a novel by the fire she reminded him of Ralph's wife rather than of his own.

While she was touring in the country she had given up reading without being aware that she had done so. She had once bought a copy of the Family Herald, hoping that it would help away the time on the long railway journey, but having herself come into a life of passion, energy and infinite variety, she could not follow with any interest the story of three young ladies in reduced circumstances who had started a dressmaking business and who were destined clearly to marry the men they loved and who loved them and who would continue to love them long after the silver threads had appeared among the gold. But now in the long lonely days spent with her baby in the lodging (Dick went away early in the morning and sometimes did not return till twelve o'clock at night), a story in a copy of The Family Herald lent to her by the landlady, on the whole a very kind and patient soul, took hold of Kate's imagination, and when she raised her eyes a tear of joy fell upon the page, and in the effusion of these sensations she would take her little girl and press it almost wildly to her breast.

Before leaving, the nurse had given Kate many directions. The baby was to have its bath in the morning; to be kept thoroughly clean, and to be given the bottle at certain times during the day and night. Kate was devoted to her child, but the attention she gave it was unsustained, a desultory attention. Sometimes she put too much water in the milk, sometimes too little.